Page 105 of Angels Are Falling

“Yes. I texted you.” I was still holding her face. She didn’t return my affections, and I made myself let go.

“Oh.” She took a step back and smoothed her hair, and the gesture put more than an arm’s length between us. “How was—how was Istanbul?”

I deserved that. I’d lied about Istanbul like it was nothing, and I was going to spend a long time paying for it. So, I didn’t flinch.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you’re tired of hearing it, Am, but you have to know. I’m so sorry. For all of it. I thought about nothing else while I was away. Then the shoot was extended, and it was fucking hell. I should never have lied to you. I should never have⁠—”

“You don’t have to do this.” She wasn’t cold. That was the disorienting part. Cold, I could have pushed against. She was gentle, the way you were gentle with someone you’d stopped needing anything from. “It’s fine.”

It’s fine from Amelie used to mean we were about to fight. Tonight, it meant I wasn’t worth the argument.

“It isn’t fine. Let me make it up to you. Tonight. Let me take you out, anywhere you want. How about that place by the beach that you like, just the two of us—” I heard myself speeding up in case she rejected my idea and made myself slow down. “Please. Let me take my wife to dinner.”

She looked down at her hands. “I already ate.”

“So, we’ll go out for drinks.”

“Not tonight,” she said awkwardly.

“Why not?”

“The nanny’s just about to bring the kids home from school.”

“Okay. So we’ll wait for the kids, then we’ll go on a family outing. Ice cream. They’ll love that.”

Then she did something I’d never once seen her do in seven years. She hesitated. I’d never known Amelie to turn down a family outing. It was her favorite thing in the world.

I frowned.

“I just worked a long shift. I was only staying up to tuck the kids into bed.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said slowly. “We’ll stay in tonight then and do something tomorrow.”

“Stefan… we have plans this weekend.” There it was, the thing she’d been trying to ease me toward instead of saying outright, and even then, she said it kindly. We. “Kai’s spending the night in LA because he has a meeting tomorrow morning⁠—”

“Oh. Kai’s not home.” My relief was immediate.

“Right,” she admitted reluctantly. “I couldn’t go with him because I was working, so he wanted to do a family brunch after he drove back. Sorry. I-I haven’t checked my phone and didn’t know you’d be home this weekend.”

The sentence landed somewhere under my ribs and just sat there. I understood, slow and stupid, that the bright voice down the hall, the real smile, the I thought you were coming home tomorrow, the jovial steps—none of it had ever been for me. She’d heard the door and thought he had come home early. She’d come flying up the hall like that for him. I’d just been standing in the path of it. My key in the front door used to pull her down a hallway exactly like that. I knew, because I’d had years of it and never once thought it was something I could lose.

“No worries,” I said, swallowing the lump forming in my throat. “Well, if it’s a family brunch, we can have it in the dining room. Common space.” Which meant I was automatically included.

She looked down, avoiding eye contact.

“We can sort out your birthday plans then. Any special requests?”

“Er.”

What now?

“Kai’s already arranged everything.” She glanced toward the window. It was dark outside now.

“Oh.” But I had planned every one of Amelie’s birthdays since she was sixteen.

“Everyone from work is coming. Rose and Caden are flying in, too. We’re going to do a big barbecue.” Amelie loved barbecues. It was an American tradition that had endlessly fascinated her. Of course, Kai knew about it. “I hope you can make it,” she added awkwardly.

Just like that, I had received an invite to my own wife’s birthday party. I didn’t know whether the right word to describe my feelings was humbled or humiliated, or perhaps a cross between the two.